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Meet Our Faculty

Core Faculty

Heather Bailey
Associate Professor of History
Ph.D. Modern European History, University of Minnesota (2001)
Teaching Concentration: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century European History, Imperial Russian and Soviet History

Research Interests: Dr. Heather Bailey joined the History faculty in 2002, and teaches broadly in modern European history. She is the author of Orthodoxy, Modernity, and Authenticity: The Reception of Ernest Renan’s “Life of Jesus” in Russia (2008). Her research interests include the cultural ties between Imperial Russia and the West, especially France, and relations between the Orthodox Church and society in late-imperial Russia. Her current research concerns Russian cultural diplomacy in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Before coming to UIS, Dr. Heather Bailey taught as a Visiting Professor at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Kristi Barnwell
Assistant Professor of History
Ph.D. Modern Middle East History
University of Texas(2011)
Teaching Concentration: Modern Middle East; United Arab Emirates; political history; Arab Nationalism and nationalist movements; British Empire; decolonization.

Research Interests: Dr. Barnwell’s current research projects focus on the impact of Arab nationalism in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. She focuses on the period of British military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and state formation in what became the United Arab Emirates in 1971. Her research languages include Modern Standard Arabic, Jordanian Arabic dialect, and Persian Gulf Arabic Dialect, as well as French. In addition to teaching an introductory course on the Modern Middle East, she also teaches Conflict in the Middle East, and Senior Seminar (World War I and the Middle East). Non-research areas of interest include feminism in Islam, Islamic reform movements, and tourism in the Middle East.

David Bertaina obtained his doctorate in Semitic Languages and Literatures from The Catholic University of America. He taught at California State University, Chico before coming to the University of Illinois at Springfield in 2007. His areas of interest include the intellectual, social and religious history of the late antique and medieval Middle East. Bertaina is specifically interested in medieval encounters between Muslims and Christians, especially in Arabic and Syriac dialogue literature and the how these texts framed the construction of identity during the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires. In 2011 he published a book project entitled: Christian and Muslim Dialogues: The Religious Uses of a Literary Form in the Early Islamic Middle East . You can find his book information here . Bertaina has taught courses on Christian-Muslim Encounters, Islamic History, Islamic Historiography, Eastern Christianity, Late Antiquity, Early Christian Historiography, Judaism-Christianity-Islam, World Religions, Introduction to Islam, and Historical Methods.

Michael Burlingame
Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair
in Lincoln Studies
Ph.D. History, Johns Hopkins University
Teaching Concentration: Professor Burlingame
devotes his scholarly energies to investigating
the life and times of Lincoln, about whom he has
published twelve books.

Professor Burlingame is the author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 vols.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) and The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). In addition, he has edited the several volumes of Lincoln primary source materials: An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996); Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997) – co-edited with John R. Turner Ettlinger; Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860-1864 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998): A Reporter’s Lincoln by Walter B. Stevens (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000); At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000); Inside the White House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln’s Secretary by William O. Stoddard (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000); Dispatches from Lincoln’s White House: The Anonymous Civil War Journalism of Presidential Secretary William O. Stoddard (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); The Real Lincoln: A Portrait by Jesse W. Weik (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); “Lincoln’s Humor” and Other Essays by Benjamin P. Thomas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002); and Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007).

He has received the Abraham Lincoln Association Book Prize (1996), the Lincoln Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University (1998), Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize, Gettsyburg College (2001), and was inducted into the Lincoln Academy of Illinois in 2009.

Research Interests: 20th century U.S. Political and diplomatic history

Professor Hogan is the author of the award-winning book The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952, as well as the author of two other monographs, six edited volumes, and 26 articles or book chapters. Most recently, a second edition of America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941, co-edited by Dr. Hogan and Dr. Frank Costigliolawas published by Cambridge University Press (2014). In 2010, Dr. Hogan won the Norman and Laura Graebner Award, a lifetime achievement award for a “distinguished scholar of diplomatic or international affairs.” Hogan’s teaching and research interests include Cold War diplomacy and Hiroshima in historical memory.

Holly Kent received her B.A. in English from The College of New Jersey and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History (with a concentration in Women’s Studies) from Lehigh University. Kent has received research grants from the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Sophia Smith Collection. Prior to coming to UIS, she taught in the History Department at Lehigh University, and the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at The College of New Jersey. Her teaching interests include the history of the United States during the early republic and antebellum eras and U.S. women’s history, specifically women’s involvement in politics and activism, women’s work as writers and readers, and the history of fashion and beauty culture. Her current research interests include women’s work as antislavery authors in the antebellum United States, and women’s involvement in the dress reform movement in the mid and late nineteenth century United States.

Research interests: Dr. Elizabeth Kosmetatou joined the History faculty in 2008 and teaches a wide range of courses in Greek and Roman history. She is the recipient of several awards, including Fulbright and Alexander for Humboldt fellowships, author of numerous articles, especially on Hellenistic history, epigraphy, and numismatics, and co-editor of Labored in Papyrus Leaves. Perspectives on an Epigram Collection Attributed to Posidippus (Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass. 2004; with Benjamin Acosta-Hughes and Manuel Baumbach). She has also participated in archaeological excavations in Greece and Turkey including Epidaurus, Vergina, Midea, and Sagalassos. Her research interests include Classical and Hellenistic Greek history and archaeology, early Rome, Greek and Latin epigraphy and numismatics, cultural studies, and political theory. Her forthcoming book is entitled The Votives in the Delian Artemision and is mainly based on her study of the inventory lists of votives that were kept in temples of Apollo’s sanctuary on Delos.

Teaching Concentration: Colonial, Revolutionary and Early National America

Dr. Owen specializes in the history of the American Revolution and the early American republic, focusing particularly on the study of political organization and mobilization, and the ways in which ordinary American citizens used this activism to influence the activities of government. His book manuscript, ‘Political Community in Revolutionary Pennsylvania, 1774-1800′, looks at how far the revolutionary principles of 1776 remained touchstones in American politics beyond the end of the Revolution. He has also contributed chapters to forthcoming volumes on the role of violence in the American founding, and on the question of political legitimacy in the 1790s. Dr Owen was educated at Oxford University, and previously taught at Ohio University and the University of Sussex. His teaching interests include the political history of the US, most aspects of colonial and revolutionary America, and Native American history. When not in the classroom or in the archives, he can normally be found watching or playing sport, trying to set foot in each of the 50 states, or finding outlets for his competitive instincts such as playing board games or competing in trivia nights.

Research Interests: Global systems of exchange and interaction; maritime exchange in premodern East Asia; social history of Japan and East Asia, especially the premodern period; social history of pirates and outlawry in East Asian and comparative contexts; gender history in Japan and East Asia; cartography and conceptualizations of space. Teaching interests: Premodern and Modern East Asia (China, Japan, Korea), Premodern Japan, From Vikings to Hackers: A Pirate’s World History, Gender in Chinese and Japanese history, Samurai in history and romance, historiography.Recent Publications:
“Polyvocal Portolans: Nautical Charts and Hybrid Maritime Cultures in Early Modern East Asia,”Early Modern Japan, XIV (2006), 4-26.
“With the Sea as their Domain: Pirates and Maritime Lordship in Medieval Japan,” in Seascapes, Littoral Cultures and Trans-Oceanic Exchanges ed., Jerry Bentley, Kären Wigen, and Renate Bridenthal (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 221-238.

Emeriti Faculty

Deborah Kuhn McGregor
Emeritus Associate Professor, History, Women’s Studies, and African-American Studies
Ph.D. History, Binghamton University
Teaching Concentration: United States history—especially 19th-century history—but also United States women’s history, history of the family, history of childhood, oral history

Research Interests: women, health and healing; the history of medicine; and the history of childbirth

Dr. McGregor has written on the history of gynecology and obstetrics, and is the author of the book From Midwives to Medicine. She enjoys working with students on a one-on-one basis and in the classroom. She has taught at UIS since 1986.

Dr. Robert McGregor is the author of several books including: A Wider View of the Universe: Henry Thoreau’s Study of Nature and Conundrums for the Long Week-End: England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey. He has served in the History Department since 1986.

Research Interests: Philosophy of art, philosophy of history, later French philosophy (especially the work of Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault), philosophy of religion,

Dr. Shiner has taught at UIS since 1971. He has published a number of articles, including “Primitive Fakes, Tourist Art, and the Ideology of Authenticity” (Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 52, 1994). He has published two books in philosophy, one related to the philosophy of history (The Secret Mirror: Literary Form and History in Tocqueville’s “Recollections” Cornell University Press, 1988) and one related to the philosophy of art (The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, University of Chicago Press, 2001).

William H. Siles
Associate Professor of American History
Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Teaching Concentration: Public history; American Westward Expansion; and American Religious, Urban, and Agricultural History